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Historical Threads

I arrived home from a tough day at work to find a squishy brown package on my doorstep. Could it be?! It was!

Each year I participate in the RedditGifts Yarn Exchange — it’s basically a global secret Santa for yarn lovers to swap fibres. Obviously, that’s right up my alley.

Well, this year, my yarn Santa sent me a beautiful array of yarns with a pattern to knit socks — I’m a beginner knitter so this was very exciting! The colours are so vibrant and I couldn’t be more excited to get to work… but wait. It gets better.

The other exciting thing for me was that the yarn comes from Custom Woolen Mills, which is a textile museum in Alberta, Canada. This place grows (on sheep, of course) and processes wool on machinery used back in the industrial revolution. That pretty amazing and special — wouldn’t have had the chance to work with yarn like this without the exchange!

I’m also really interested in the history of fibre arts, so I was extra excited to receive this package.

I’m not sure if I’ll actually make the socks that the pattern suggests, of if I’ll whip something else up… stay tuned.